No Room for the Moon
by aholeintheground
Summary: Vignette, Grantaire teases Enjolras, a fountain is involved, please R and R! If you don't like it, i will take requests and make it up to you! all feedback is welcome and appreciated!
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I do not own these characters, they belong to the brilliant victor hugo!

"You look like a hipster." Enjolras is tossing an empty coffee cup into a trashcan, the hint of a teasing smile just on the edge of Grantaire's line of vision.  
"You look like a model," Grantaire returns, not letting Enjolras' slight affect him.  
They walk alongside the busy street cafes and flower shops and secondhand bookstores baking like bread in the mid afternoon sun.  
"Seriously though, you look like a Greek god. You're hair is downright angelic, I might actually _kill_ for your nose, and those LIPS!" Grantaire is shouting, laughing, flashing a naughty smile that makes Enjolras blush and look around.

"People are starting to stare," he mutters, but he doesn't look too cut up about it, the corners of those lips curling up subtly.  
"Let them!" Grantaire half shouts, grabbing Enjolras' hand in a tight grip and whispering in his ear that his lips are worth it, feeling those curls tickle his cheek as he does, before racing across the street, matching the chaos of this city under the blazing sun.

It seems like there are cars and buses everywhere, swimming across his line of vision in blasts of brilliant reds and yellows and blues but the oasis is just ahead and Enjolras seems content in his steady but sweaty grip and Grantaire still hasn't stopped laughing and now he is walking backwards towards a fountain and a group of tourists feeding pigeons and the light of the water is reflected in Enjolras' eyes and Grantaire thinks he couldn't be more drunk off of anything than those eyes and then the backs of his knees hit something solid the way he wants the edge of a bed to and the last thing he sees before the deluge is Enjolras' face, shocked and smiling and inches from his and he grabs a fistful of Enjolras' perfect red t shirt because he'll be damned if they aren't going down together.


	2. Chapter 2

Grantaire was out of the house so fast Enjolras barely had time to react. One minute they had been arguing, something stupid, but then he'd said something he didn't mean, something bad, and Grantaire took off like a bullet.  
"Grantaire!" Enjolras jumped up, grabbing his red coat and Grantaire's faded blue one and ran out into the rain after him. The sky sobbed onto the streets of Paris and the wind wailed and Enjolras scowled thinking the world was so bloody dramatic and tried to ignore the guilt that was making it hard for him to breathe. Grantaire couldn't be far ahead of him but in the rain it was hard to tell. Enjolras was so used to the color Grantaire brought to his life and it occurred to him that of course Grantaire would walk out on the grayest day of the year. There was no red but Enjolras' coat, soaked through, not made for rain, nor blue, not even the sky, but for Grantaire's jacket, the rain easing away the scuffmarks and making it look brand new. There wasn't even a flash of yellow, a color Enjolras often associated with Grantaire, who seemed to have a particular talent for living big, living bright, and living fast that Enjolras could not even begin to fathom and all of that was a searing yellow, the backs of his eyelids in the sun just before the burning red set in.  
Out of the corner of his eye, Enjolras spotted a shape in an alley to his right. He spun desperately and upon recognizing the figure, made his way towards him. Grantaire was leaning against the stained brick wall, arms braced and head almost between his knees, taking giant gasping breaths. Enjolras hurtled towards him and didn't stop running until he crashed right into Grantaire, bundling him up in his arms and crushing the dark wet curls into his chest. Grantaire sobbed like the sky and his eyes were screwed shut and Enjolras so much wanted to see those bright blue eyes without tears spilling out of them.  
"I'm _so_ sorry," Enjolras whispered, kissing the top of Grantaire's head softly.  
When Grantaire didn't respond, Enjolras continued almost desperately and without thinking, "Grantaire, please, I didn't mean it. I take it all back. If I had the chance to do it again, I would never-" his voice broke and a stone seemed lodged in his throat. He fought the hot tears as they gathered, but was somehow relieved when they won and stained his cold cheeks. His body shuddered against Grantaire's and in a way this communal tear fest was more intimate than any embrace they had shared before. Enjolras would slightly hate himself for it later, the fearless leader finally cracking up, but right now it didn't matter, not here is this world inhabited only by Grantaire and him.  
"I know. I forgive you," Grantaire whispered back, barely audible above the rain and the wind. Enjolras could taste the rainwater running down his face, obscuring his vision so that Grantaire was blurry like an old impressionist work of art he'd raved about one day when Enjolras was only half listening as they wandered through an out of the way art gallery on a narrow street one hot lazy July afternoon.  
Grantaire looked up through rain or tear soaked lashes and gave a small smile.  
"We should probably get out of the rain," Grantaire said softly, extricating himself from the embrace and starting to walk out of the alley. Enjolras had a sudden flash of fear that he was being left behind. Grantaire didn't hold grudges, often joked he didn't have the attention span for them, but Enjolras couldn't help but feel that this time he'd messed up too badly, that it was over now and the world that he and Grantaire shared would be only Grantaire's again and maybe Enjolras never really belonged there anyway.  
"I love you!" Enjolras yelled suddenly.

Grantaire froze.  
Enjolras hurried up to him and practically threw himself in front of the dark haired man. Part of him was afraid (what about this love game made the fearless leader so afraid?) that if he left the opening of the alley free Grantaire might make a break for it.  
Grantaire's face held a look of pure shock. Enjolras searched it a little desperately for any sign that Grantaire loved him back or maybe this really was all a game to him, maybe he first used alcohol to destroy himself but when that wasn't potent enough maybe he decided love was a better tool for self destruction, but now Enjolras was involved and where was his place in all of this? Had he taken this game too far?

Grantaire's face shifted, a black look of rage replacing his confusion, and in one fluid motion he socked Enjolras hard on the jaw. Enjolras staggered backwards, absorbing the impact. He'd been hit before during protests, but at least he'd seen most of those coming and none of them had been from his sort of boyfriend.  
"What the fuck?" They both said simultaneously, one a shocked and breathless mutter, the other a heartrending accusation.  
Then Grantaire spoke first, eyes on fire and flashing, "How dare you say you love me!" He jabbed a finger in Enjolras' chest, forcing him to take a step back less from the jab and more from the venom in his voice.  
"I loved you from the moment I laid eyes on you!" he yelled, now grabbing the shirt and pulling forward and Enjolras could see fresh tears on his face and it felt like a stab in the heart to know he was the cause of them. "I idolized you! I stopped drinking on Tuesdays and came to that coffee shop instead just to hear you talk! I started going to my classes again just so I could paint you! And then you finally noticed me more than to tell me to sober up and I thought _this is it, I finally have some of him_. So what if this was a pathetically one-sided love affair, at least it was something! And now you go throwing around words like love and you don't even know what they mean. Love isn't just a stronger sorry. And it's not red roses and fucking heart-shaped chocolates either, if you were thinking about using any of those tomorrow. Don't you dare say _I love you_," he spat_, "_If you don't mean it the way I do when I whisper it every night after you've fallen asleep."

He let go of Enjolras shirt then and Enjolras swayed unsteadily, clattering into a metal trashcan, coats slipping out of his numb fingers and falling with a muted rustle to the ground between them. Enjolras, who made a habit out of shocking people, who prided himself on his ability to pull just the right fact or figure out of his pocket to vilify or glorify anyone he chose, had never been more shocked in his life, and had never been so in the mood for digging his own grave and falling into it and pulling the earthen sheet over his head. Could he have really been so blind? Enjolras didn't use people, at least not people he knew, for personal gain, for comfort or distraction, did he?

He didn't want to look at Grantaire, knew that all the answers were there in the stormy shade of his eyes and the wavering line of his lips and they were answers he didn't want to know but he forced himself to do it anyway. The look on Grantaire's face made his chest feel like it was caving in with shame, but he felt more than that, something that redeemed him.

Grantaire opened his mouth to talk again and his voice was surprisingly even.

"If you don't love me, don't say it again. I'll let it go and I'll never ask about it and-"

"I love you."

"Enjolras, _please, _I don't think I can take-"

Enjolras closed the distance between them, feeling a rush of something that set him on fire like none of his speeches or rallies or debates. His so-called passion was a sputtering candle compared to this.

"I love you," he said plainly, but like one of Grantaire's charcoal sketches, it contained a complexity and depth of emotion, the shadows and lines in his face a portrait laid bare for Grantaire, a little green in his eyes for fear, a low blushing pink in his cheeks for the nerves and the excitement, and a hint of yellow smudged in with the gold in his hair that said he was all for Grantaire, that he was not the same without him. That night he would say all of those things in words but it was no less understood now in simple gestures.

Enjolras took Grantaire's hands in his and drew him forward until their foreheads rested against each other. Grantaire's eyes were closed and he stood _so still_ and gripped Enjolras' hands tightly. The awkwardness Enjolras had felt around others sometimes, as if when he wasn't on a soapbox he wasn't a part of them, vanished without a trace. The rain still drizzled, not that they noticed it, running between their faces and rolling off their already saturated clothes. The sky was still an ugly gray, but now Enjolras' eyes were closed too and all he could see was that paradise that Grantaire let him into with its bursts of color and light in the gray spaces he used to inhabit. They stood in the silence for a few moments, soaking in as much of each other as they had rain and then without warning Grantaire let go of one hand and led him by the other with a wild yell, running forward, forgetting the coats, forgetting the puddles, and Enjolras had no idea where they were going, didn't know if Grantaire knew either, but just this once he was content to follow. They sped through the empty streets of Paris and Enjolras decided that he loved it when they ran together, this heady charge of emotional electricity, coming in bursts from the maniacal grins they flashed each other and the glow of the streetlamps glinting wetly off the pavement. They were rounding a corner when Enjolras' foot caught on a loose cobblestone and they went hurtling out of orbit and they were falling and it occurred to Enjolras that he was always falling with Grantaire, falling in fountains, falling into puddles that would cake their clothes with mud like thick brown paint, but also a different kind of falling, that reckless plunge into love.


End file.
